The Church of England still contends it is just that; the Church for our Nation. Yet where are the priests? Where will they come from in future? I understand there is only a handful of candidates at Mirfield this year, and St Stephen's house is not much better. But should this come as a surprise?The Church Times recently published statistics about Ordinands. Now I was ordained just fifty years ago, and in that year there were around six hundred new deacons. This year there were 564, so we are doing well, aren't we? No, we are not.
In 1960 the overwhelming majority of new deacons were men under thirty, with a possible forty years of ministry ahead of them. They were almost without exception stipendiary, full-time clergymen. The then archbishop said that if we kept those numbers up, we would just about replace those dying or retiring. This was not in the days of George Herbert and his ideal of the country parson; it is recent history.
In 2009, of the 564 being ordained, only 309 were entering full-time stipendiary ministry. About half of them will have been women, so the number of full-time male deacons ordained is down from 600 to about 160. Well, that's pretty good, isn't it, since we have reduced the parishes by amalgamations.? No, it is not good. Compare the years of service to be expected now with 1960. Most of us then could look forward to forty years in the priesthood. Today, the number of candidates under the age of 30 is only 74. Seventy-four younger full-time priests - half of them female. Small wonder our colleges are struggling. And where will our Anglo-Catholic parishes get their priests?
Of the remaining candidates, the number between 50 and 59 being recommended has risen to 126. Go on a course at 55, complete three years training, and at 58 you are ordained; with, at best, eight or nine years of full-time ministry ahead. When set against years of ministry, it is vastly more expensive for the church to ordain older candidates. It is not many years since no-one would be considered for ordination over the age of forty. Now that is considered young.
This is a vicious spiral; ordain older candidates, and the young will have no model of priesthood to attract them. The Dean of Leicester said she was looking forward to a time when the church of England would be feminised. That is happening very rapidly; but the ministry is also becoming geriatric. Still there seem to be no misgivings at the prospect of young priests leaving the Church of England to join the Ordinariate. "There will be an influx of women to fill the gap". That was said in 1992. It has not happened. For how much longer will the Church of England be able to claim to be a Church of the Nation, with every soul in the care of a Vicar or Rector? Someone has to wake up, and start working, paying and praying for younger ordinands.
A letter to all Anglo Catholics:
ReplyDeletehttp://catholicgossip.blogspot.com/
It used to be said of the Church Times that it was a venial sin not to read it, but a mortal sin to enjoy it. I think the same might apply to the blog recommended above.
ReplyDeleteI bow to your wisdom, Bishop but cannot help feeling that once the ordinariate is up and running its groups, there is just a chance that the rancour and bitterness, the "feuding and fighting" of recent decades will cease, and that this will encourage vocations into each "Anglican Patrimony" (the Roman style one of the ordinariate and the Hooker style one of the rest).
ReplyDeleteIt struck me as ironic that the 1990s, the "Decade of Evangelism", became marked as the start of great division in the Church of England.
Fortunately the parish where I worked had had a cheerful and successful "Decade of Evangelism" 1983 - 1992. They don't seem to have stopped either!
Is the ordinariate likely to be pointed towards Newman (who has always seemed rather liberal to me) and George Herbert as their pastoral reference points?
My best wishes to you,
Ted Baty
I agree entirely about the end to rancour and bitterness. I have dared a comment on your catholic gossip blog to try to spell out some of my misgivings about the post you recommended.
ReplyDelete+E